At 10/9/98 06:26 AM , Joe Geiser wrote:
>Jeff Kell writes,
>
>> And for bonus points, who remembers SLEUTH (on the standalone
>> diagnostic
>> tapes) where you could load up a "butterfly seek" test going from the
>> innermost cylinder, outermost cylinder, IC+1, OC-1, IC+2, OC-2, etc?
>> You could watch the action with the 7925 :-)  SLEUTH was a
>> wicked tool,
>> sort of a BASIC programming language for disc drive sadists :-)
>
>Yep - spent a week with SLEUTH one day, with an HPRC Engineer on the phone.
>
>
>Also, how many times had SADUTIL pulled someone's butt out of the wringer?
>(SADUTIL - StandAlone Diagnostic Utility - ya booted in in from tape, and
>you could do the neatest things with it - like back up files on specific
>drives because one was down and had white powder all over the place... hey,
>80% was better than nothing :)

But somehow the operators could never remember what SADUTIL stood for, so
we got in the habit of saying "it is a SAD day when you have to run this
UTILity."  SLEUTH wasn't all that bad.  It was very much like BASIC and it
worked like a champ.

Oh, but the most fun was recovering databases (which fortunately were not
on LDEV 1) when LDEV 1 failed.  No system directory to use to find the
files.  Remember FIND?  Tell it the file name and it would scan the disc
pack sector by sector until it either found the file label or ran out of
sectors.  There is no experience like recovering over 300 datasets that
way.  Ah, but when RECOVER5 put those files back on a fresh system, there
was a certain sense of satisfaction.

All the talk about the problems with the head wires brought back memories
of frequent usage of the DUS tape (Diagnostic Utilities Subsystem) which
contained SADUTIL, SLEUTH, CPU diagnostics, Tape diagnostics (which always
made me wonder, if the diagnostic for the tape is on tape, and the tape is
not operating properly, how do you load the tape diagnostic?), etc.

It also reminds me of a Saturday I spent in the computer room with 4 or 5
HP employees and a couple of my employees (system manager and operator).
It was sometime around 1979 to 1981 and we had a Series III with a 7920 (50
Mb) as LDEV 1 and four 7925 (125 Mb) discs.  It has been so long that the
details are getting fuzzy, but I seem to remember we were moving from one
release to another (they were Athena, Bruno, Cheetah, back then, with date
codes like 1836 and 2015 - 36th week of 1978 and 15th week of 1980).  It
was also a time when you had an account CE, an account SE, and when the
CEDM (CE District Manager) came out annually to make sure you were happy
with your hardware support.  We came up on the new version of MPE and
within minutes the discs started getting corrupt.  Within an hour after
startup the directory and user files were so corrupt the system would go
down and a reload would be necessary.  This went on for two days, and then
HP decided to send out a team to find and fix the problem.  I don't
remember the names of all the players, but I'll never forget the two key
players as they were two of the most helpful HP employees I've ever had the
pleasure of working with - Wayne Franklin and Sam Patsy.  Wayne was the CE
district manager and Sam was our account SE (who was also the SE on our HP
2000).  We met at the computer room about 8 AM and started things off with
an accounts reload.  Minutes later the system was trashed.  Everyone was
puzzled.  The accounts reload was repeated a couple of times.  Many
diagnostics were run.  More accounts reloads.  Noon came.  Wayne sent out
for pizza, and I suspended the "no food or drink in the computer room"
rule.  While we were eating pizza, Wayne asked Sam what new features were
in the new software release.  I've forgotten what the reply was.  I think
it was rotational position sensing, but it has been so long that I may be
wrong.  Anyway, Wayne jumped up, ran over to the disc drives, powered them
off, and started taking their covers off.  A few minutes later he had found
the problem.  Some of the discs had old versions of the controller cards
and they couldn't properly handle the new feature and that led to data
corruption.  Fortunately, Wayne and the account CE had brought with them
enough disc kits to replace the out-of-date boards and get us up and
running.  The HP team stayed around for another couple of hours to make
sure that the problem was solved, and ended up leaving in mid afternoon.

There were also many occasions when another fantastic HP employee, Tom
Benedict, came out to help us with our datacomm problems.  With Tom's help
our HP 3000 Series III, and later the Series 64, worked wonders.

Back then there was preventive maintenance scheduled every couple of
months, and for some MPE releases the account SE came on-site to perform
the MPE installation.  You saw your HP CE on a routine basis.  You could
see the "face of HP".  Today the hardware runs for years, the software is
user-installable, and with high-speed modems and internet connectivity,
there is very little need for an HP software engineer to come on site.  In
a way I miss those PM visits, especially those where the CE would bring out
literature on the latest hardware and would very excitedly tell you about
the neat new features of the new hardware, almost beside themselves with
enthusiasm.

Oh well.  Times change.

John

--------------------------------------------------------------
John Korb                            email: [log in to unmask]
Innovative Software Solutions, Inc.

The thoughts, comments, and opinions expressed herein are mine
and do not reflect those of my employer(s), or anyone else.